Till towards the vesper hour; and then, 'twas said,
Some heard a voice, which seemed as if it read;
And others said, that they could hear a sound
Of many horses trampling the moist ground.
Still nothing came :-till on a sudden, just
As the wind opened in a rising gust,

A voice of chaunting rose, and, as it spread,
They plainly heard the anthem for the dead.
It was the choristers who went to meet

The train, and now were entering the first street.
Then turned aside that city, young and old,
And in their lifted hands the gushing sorrow
rolled.

But of the older people few could bear

To keep the window, when the train drew near;
And all felt double tenderness to see

The bier approaching, slow and steadily,
On which those two in senseless coldness lay,
Who but a few short months-it seem'd a day,
Had left their walls, lovely in form and mind;
In sunny manhood he,-she first of womankind.

They say that when Duke Guido saw them come He clasped his hands, and looking round the room, Lost his old wits for ever. From the morrow None saw him after. But no more of sorrow.

On that same night, those lovers silently Were buried in one grave, under a tree. There, side by side, and hand in hand, they lay In the green ground;-and on fine nights in May Young hearts betrothed used to go there to pray.

THE PANTHER.1

["Hero and Leander," 1819. " Works," 1832, 1844, 1857, 1860. "Rimini," &c., 1844. Kent, 1889. "Canterbury Poets," 1889.]

T

HE panther leaped to the front of his

lair,

And stood with a foot up, and snuffed
the air;

He quivered his tongue from his panting mouth,
And looked with a yearning towards the south;
For he scented afar in the coming breeze
News of the gums and their blossoming trees ;
And out of Armenia that same day

He and his race came bounding away.
Over the mountains and down to the plains
Like Bacchus's panthers with wine in their veins,
They came where the woods wept odorous rains;
And there, with a quivering, every beast
Fell to his old Pamphylian feast.

The people who lived not far away,

Heard the roaring on that same day;

And they said, as they lay in their carpeted rooms, "The panthers are come, and are drinking the

And some of them going with swords and spears To gather their share of the rich round tears,

1 The circumstances of this poem are taken from Philostratus' "Life of Apollonius of Tyæna." (Advertisement to "Hero and Leander, &c.")

The panther I spoke of followed them back;
And dumbly they let him tread close in the track,
And lured him after them into the town;
And then they let the portcullis down,
And took the panther, which happened to be
The largest was seen in all Pamphily.

By every one there was the panther admired,
So fine was his shape and so sleekly attired,
And such an air, both princely and swift,
He had, when giving a sudden lift

To his mighty paw, he'd turn at a sound,
And so stand panting and looking around,
As if he attended a monarch crowned.
And truly, they wondered the more to behold
About his neck a collar of gold,

On which was written, in characters broad,
"Arsaces the king to the Nysian God."
So they tied to the collar a golden chain,
Which made the panther a captive again,
And by degrees he grew fearful and still,
As if he had lost his lordly will.

But now came the spring, when free-born love Calls up nature in forest and grove,

And makes each thing leap forth, and be
Loving, and lovely, and blithe as he.
The panther he felt the thrill of the air,

And he gave a leap up, like that at his lair;

He felt the sharp sweetness more strengthen his

veins

Ten times than ever the spicy rains,

And ere they're aware, he has burst his chains;

He has burst his chains, and ah, ha! he's gone,
And the links and the gazers are left alone,
And off to the mountains the panther's flown.

Now what made the panther a prisoner be? Lo! 'twas the spices and luxury.

And what set that lordly panther free?

'Twas Love!-'twas Love !-'twas no one but he.

MAHMOUD.1

["Liberal," No. IV., 1823. "Works," 1832, 1844, 1857, 1860. Kent, 1889. "Canterbury Poets," 1889.]

TO RICHARD HENRY HORNE.2

Horne, hear a theme that should have had its dues From thine own passionate and thoughtful Muse.

HAVE just read a most amazing thing,

A true and noble story of a king :

And to show all men, by these presents,
how

Good kings can please a Liberal, even now
I'll vent the warmth it gave me in a verse:
But recollect-these kings and emperors
Are very scarce; and when they do appear,
Had better not have graced that drunken sphere,
Which hurts the few whose brains can bear it best,

1 This is Mahmoud the Garnevide, whose history has been told by Gibbon.

2 The dedication was introduced when the poem was reprinted in the 1844 edition of the "Poetical Works."

And turns the unhappy heads of all the rest.
This prince was worthy to have ruled a state
Plain as his heart, and by its freedom great :
But stripped of their gilt stuff, at what would
t'others rate?

There came a man, making his hasty moan Before the Sultan Mahmoud on his throne, And crying out-"My sorrow is my right, And I will see the Sultan, and to-night."

66

Sorrow," said Mahmoud, “is a reverend thing: I recognize its right, as king with king;

Speak on.' "A fiend has got into my house,"
Exclaimed the staring man, 66 and tortures us :
One of thine officers ;--he comes, the abhorred,
And takes possession of my house, my board,
My bed :-I have two daughters and a wife,
And the wild villain comes, and makes me mad
with life."

_"No;

"Is he there now?" said Mahmoud :

he left

The house when I did, of my wits bereft ;
And laughed me down the street, because I vowed
I'd bring the prince himself to lay him in his shroud,
I'm mad with want, I'm mad with misery,
And oh, thou Sultan Mahmoud, God cries out for
thee!"

The Sultan comforted the man, and said, "Go home, and I will send thee wine and bread," (For he was poor), "and other comforts. And should the wretch return, let Sultan Mahmoud

Go;

know."